About Me

Award winning contemporary folk artist Sue Prince lives on a Peak District organic dairy farm. In 2004, she visited Southern Sweden and having painted and produced narrative art work all her life, she became inspired by an almost extinct form of ancient Swedish painting. All the different strands of her life came together in this sort of organic art work. She is now instrumental in the revival of this form in Sweden.

Her works are narrative and communicative, the words being as important as the images. Sue is fascinated by folk art as it exposes us all as humans, who haven't changed through time. Swedish Bonad painting echoes folk art through the ages from Egyptian tomb paintings to the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Sue's folk art paintings are created on cotton canvas or linen and real gesso (chalk and rabbit skin glue) or acrylic gesso, with a very limited palate of natural earth pigments and indigo. She wants to celebrate rural life and to express modern stories and issues, telling stories of people and their places. She grinds the pigments and uses local eggs to create works with integrity. She strives to make her work as natural as possible.

Sue had work in the 2014 Serco Prize for Illustration Exhibition at the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden and she is the Winner of the Grand Prix and purchase award in the 16th Biennale of Naive Art in Serbia. Her work is also in public galleries in Serbia, Sweden and Slovenia as well as many private collections in England.

Community Folk Art Projects

Alstonefield Ann Green Festival

In 2018, Sue led a community folk art project in the Staffordshire Village of Alstonefield, celebrating St Peter's Church. Ann Green was buried here in 1518 and has the oldest legible gravestone in the country.

Ashbourne Treasures

In 2017 Sue led a community folk art project for Ashbourne Treasures, a summer long celebration of all the historic artefacts associated with Ashbourne. Over the three days of the Easter weekend Ashbourne Town Hall became an exhibition and artist's studio for over 170 Ashbourne residents who took part in the creation of the four-panel History of Ashbourne. Full sized prints are now displayed in several prominent places in the town.

Odensjo Heritage Park, Sweden

The small Swedish village of Odensjo was given a huge old traditional barn, to be moved to their Heritage Park. This community folk art tells the story of the clearing, dismantling, transportation, and rebuilding of the barn by the community.

The Story of Ebbe Skamelsson

The Viking Saga of Ebbe Skamelsson is very important to the Swedish village of Unnaryd. This community folk art was created in the Bonad Museum, in the Heritage Park by many members of the community.